214 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. XVIII 



efficacious ; and various steeps have been adopted for tlie seed * ; but no 

 remedy has been hitherto found to completely answer the intended pur- 

 pose, and it is not unfair to presume that, when crops have been thus 

 apparently saved, their preservation ought rather to be attributed to causes 

 beyond our control. Such expedients may not indeed be productive of 

 harm ; but we should rather place confidence in a good soil, with an 

 abundance of well-rotted dung, a full quantity of seed, and careful culture, 

 to secure the rapid growth of the plants, than in any other means of forcing 

 vegetation. 



STORING. 



Turnips are not unfrequently grown on land which is too wet in the 

 winter to allow of their being fed off" the ground by sheep ; and it is also in 

 many cases expedient to draw a portion of them — perhaps every second or 

 third ridge — fur the support of cattle in the yards. To effect this, and also 

 to guard against the danger iv. which they are exposed in severe weather 

 from the frost, it has become a very prevalent custom among farmers, who 

 hold land in bleak and exposed situations, to store up considerable quanti- 

 ties in the month of November and the beginning of December, or later 

 according to the climate and the state of the crop. Like most other ope- 

 rations in husbandry, there are several methods of storing; some carrying 

 oft" the entire crop, or only a part, and either stacking them in the field, 

 or ])lacing them in pits, or under sheds, and others cutting off" the tops and 

 tap-roots, while many consider the latter operation unnecessary ; but the 

 most usual practice is — to " top and tail" the best roots, preserving only 

 the sound bulbs, and to give the tops to the store stock while fresh and 

 newly cut ; by which means a considerable portion of food is saved, which 

 is otherwise either lost, or ploughed down for manure. They are then 

 carted to some dry spot near the feeding sheds, and ])iled upon the surface 

 of the ground in narrow ridges, about five feet wide at the base; and taper- 

 ing gradually to the form of a wedge ; which is afterwards well thatched 

 with fern, straw, or rushes, and secured with ropes. Careful men also bed 

 them upon refuse straw, or stubble, to secure them from the wet ; and, 

 when the frost becomes intense, it is not a bad precaution to cover them 

 also with long stable dung. Attention should also be paid to the operation 

 of topping and tailing-; for, if any great portion of either be left, the tur- 

 nips are liable to vegetate ; and if the bulb be wounded, it is apt to rot. 

 It is indeed impossible in practice to always hit the precise point where 

 they should be cut : the safer way is therefore to leave a part of the top 

 and root, rather than incur the risk of injuring the bulb ; as it is wiser to 

 run the hazard of a slight vegetation than of entire putrcfactionf. The 

 process is in some cases performed in tlie field before the turnips are carted 

 liome, and the tops and tails are then ploughed into the land as a partial 

 dressing for the future crop. ; 



was, that the thinly sown Swedish turnips were not sensibly injured by the fly, while 

 the thickly sown common ones were quite black with swarms of the insect. After the 

 Swedes had got into rough-leaf, the rows of common turnip were iiloughed up, and the 

 Held being managed in the usual way, turned out a good crop, wlulst all the other 

 turnips in the parish failed. — Trans, of the Soc. of Arts, vol. xiv. 



* Among these we learn from the Annals of Agriculture, (vol. xiv.) that train-oil has 

 been used ; and in the Survey of Essex an instance is mentioned of an eminent farmer 

 who never lost a crop of turnips ; "owing," as he said, " to his having steeped the see<l 

 the night before sowing, in water mixed with black brimstone powdered." — Vol. i. p. 371. 

 ^ ■}■ See Two Essays on the Storing of Turnips, for which a premium was offered by Sir 

 G, S. Mackenzie, Bart., Farmer's Mag. vol. vi, 



